


Wish For Death

by ElvaDeath



Series: The World of Draco Malfoy [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Aurors, Depressed Draco Malfoy, Depressing, Draco Malfoy Needs a Hug, Hermione Granger is a Good Friend, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Lucius Malfoy's A+ Parenting, POV Draco Malfoy, Sad Draco Malfoy, Sad with a Happy Ending, draco has a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:16:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23393884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElvaDeath/pseuds/ElvaDeath
Summary: He falls, hard. There's nothing left, only pain and emptiness, and the overwhelming guilt of it all. He wishes it would all go away. He wishes he didn't have to live anymore.Draco Malfoy wishes he were dead.- E.D.
Series: The World of Draco Malfoy [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1580998
Comments: 2
Kudos: 110





	Wish For Death

**Author's Note:**

> Started writing this to get out of a depressed mood, and it worked, but even better I actually finished writing it! It's more of a collection of ideas than an actual plot, but it has a nice neat ending that doesn't end in death and pain and despair. For once.
> 
> Enjoy!  
> \- E.D.

Draco can’t look away from her, can’t block out her screams. There’s nothing in his mind but the horror of this moment. 

He can’t do anything. He can’t stop it. He can’t run away. He can’t even kill himself to stop his heart breaking. Draco really is, as usual, completely useless.

He wishes he were dead.

And then they’re gone, along with his wand. It all seems to happen so quickly, in the panic of the moment, and then he’s writhing on the ground once more as Bellatrix casts another Crucio. 

Faintly, he can feel the cold marble beneath his body and he can hear his own screams, painting the gap left by Hermione’s. His body is jerking, twisting unnaturally, his sensitive nerve ends stabbing at his raw mind, and everything falls into black as something snaps. 

He wakes up, hours later, with his spine fixed and his body left alone on the floor.

He wishes he were dead.

The fire is searing through his skin, the yelling of his two oldest friends in his ears, nearly drowned out by the fierce roar of the fire. He climbs, higher and higher. It’s not high enough. Nothing he does is enough. 

Crabbe falls, his last scream cut short as the flames consume him. 

Draco’s heart strains to break apart, and for a second his fingers loosen their grip as he prepares to dive after his friend. Potter stops him, scoops him up. Then Draco can’t scream, only cling on in terror and shock, only stumble away into the depths of the castle once more.

He wishes he were dead.

He loses his father to Azkaban, his mother to grief, and his fortune to the ministry. He wants to scream, and so he does every night, into the Manor that is no stranger to his agony. It’s the only thing they didn’t want, except for him. Branded with dark magic and an even darker reputation, they rot together, unloved and unwanted. 

Draco lies in bed, useless. He runs out of money. He doesn’t try to count the days. They send Aurors in, bitter and suspicious, who poke at his body and claim him unfit for independent living. They’re wrong. He isn’t fit for any type of living.

He wishes he were dead.

Draco is sent to another type of Azkaban, with all of the screaming inmates and bolted doors, but without the dirt and risk of death. A ward in Saint Mungo’s. He rots there, too, wishing for the day when they could give up this farce and send him to the real place. At least there he might be left to die in peace. He feels dead already, even though his heart beats and his lungs breathe.

He wishes he were dead.

The Aurors come again. Potter and Weaselbee. He watches them; they watch him. They talk; he doesn’t. Questions, so many questions. Draco sighs, turning so his back is to them, and they leave. 

Some small part of him wants them back. Some small part of him wishes he could have sneered at them like before, when everything was good. But he can’t sneer when their lives are so perfect and liveable, and his is so close to the end. 

The next time they come, he manages a snipe about how they only care when he’s dead, and they exchange glances and tell him he’s not dead. Not yet, he says, and they leave.

He wishes he were dead.

She comes. Not as an Auror, as a visitor. Her bushy hair is slicked back into a neat plait, and he tells her he preferred it before. She tells him his doesn’t look much better. He asks her for scissors or a knife to cut it. She doesn’t respond, pitying eyes sliding to his scarred wrists, and he hides them under the blanket and goes silent. 

She leaves. He doubts she’ll come back, prays for it, because that night he’s plagued with memories from that day. Sweat slicks his hair in the morning. He throws up any food he had left, then retches bile.

He wishes he were dead.

Twenty four, and they still visit. One or two, never three, as by the rules. They sit and talk, and he slurs words back occasionally. It’s strange, how different things are from before. Back then, he hated them for being inferior. Now, they like him for being inferior. That’s the only thing he can work out, in between all of the delicate words and quick dodging of any sensitive topics. 

He learns about their work, their love lives, their families, their hates, their loves, and everything else they spill to him. In return, he tells them about death. He’s researched it. He had a lot of spare time in between the torture and worry of war. They laugh, nervous, uncomfortable, at every fact and figure. He wishes they would just leave.

He wishes he were dead.

But then he starts telling them more. His mother and her smile. His father and his tutoring. Crabbe and his stars. Goyle and his baking. Pansy and her wardrobe. Blaise and his chess. With every story, he finds himself sitting up, smiling. The more he tells, the more the world brightens like a dusty bulb being cleaned, polished to a shine. 

Harry bakes him the cupcakes he said Goyle used to make. He eats them all, and none come back up to be hurled into his toilet. Hermione brings him outfits he said that Pansy recommended him, and he wears a new one every few days. Ron brings him chess, and Draco uses all the skills Blaise taught him to thoroughly beat him.

Does he wish he were dead?

They release him. He sells the Manor, now that the war is not so fresh in people’s minds, and it becomes a museum. His new apartment is blue and bright, with windows and no magic inside. Draco gets a job with his Muggle identity, selling Muggle drinks at a Muggle cafe, where he meets Muggle friends, and he loves every cubic centimetre of their Muggle blood. 

The cat he buys is perfectly ordinary, no kneazle blood in her. She’s named Cat, because that’s what she is, and he’s done with lying and giving things names of power. Like the Dark Mark. He calls it his Scar, now, because it holds no power over him than an ordinary scar. His Muggle friends don’t mind it, either. They don’t flinch when he rolls his sleeve up.

The Golden Trio leave him alone when he asks, visit when he breaks again. It’s never simple or easy, but somehow the cracks left by the years gone by are patched over with tape. They’re not friends, not by a long shot, but they’re there when he can do nothing but lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. He never learns why they help. He suspects he doesn’t want to know the answer.

They send Aurors in, bitter and suspicious. He shows them in, and smiles. They may still hold hate in their hearts for everything, but he doesn’t blame them. He didn’t blame them before, but something about the knowledge makes him smile this time. They leave. He sits on the sofa, Cat purring on his lap, listening to the Muggle cars shudder past. He smiles. He doesn’t blame them, but...

He doesn’t blame himself, either. That’s the change. No anger or guilt comes from thinking about everything, because it was all in the past. His heart thumps in fear of it, but he can’t change what happened. The best he can do is change his heart to improve tomorrow.

He falls asleep, the smile still on his face. He doesn’t blame himself. His heart beats, and his lungs breathe, because he’s alive and ready for tomorrow to come.

He’s alive, and he loves it.


End file.
